Late April Sex and Snow

Late April Snow

wool, even in the mid of April,

is the thrown- over-

the- shoulder- white scarf

Ruth gave to me

one Christmas, what? fifteen?

twenty years ago now?  Because
it's cold here now, the way it was

yesterday when it snowed (so
I'm told) at home--

plowable, shovelable,

school-closing snow, and
some of the whole

town just stood to watch, aloof

(you know how they are)

taking it on the chin, lifting

their faces to the gray pate

of the world as if they know it

and push the snow off

their bow and stern into the water

into the bay, onto the mooring

they’ll untie and go out

anyway they’ll say aint that pretty

or shit’s getting old.  They’d

hoped, maybe, because they'd
waited all winter, for warm line-

dried sheets, they’d hoped

(coaxing, slow) another run

through the wife or girl or boy

but those saying and whose business

is it anyway?  These sheets see

everything and say, at the end

of the day, nothing except pock-

marks lost coals sucked red only

to fall in the bed and shit

be huffed and brushed

and patted out light like the head

of a chained all day ugly dog.

I’m not there, not in bed, not

on a boat though I wouldn’t mind,

though I know guys my age

hang limp between their knees

and each day is a second a minute

or two longer just to get going, and

seeing snow this late? what do

they really say?  Maybe it’s nothing,

maybe what we have in common other

than growing up together is what

we reach for in a morning like this:

wool. 

Despite its itch, despite its winter sweat,

(he’d thought to have her wash it

with those sheets he’d wanted to see

it on that line drying out clean like

an old friend swearing it all off this time

I mean it this time I’m gonna I’m not

gonna touch the stuff ever not never again

this time and mean it each word each syllable

each little ice-cube each little flake

accumulating on the hat

on his head, like my head, though

its words for me, thoughts under

all that wool banking themselves

against the Coleman stove I want

my memories to be, just warm enough,

just polished enough to see

the way ghosts see or are seen,
on the periphery,

or are worn on mornings
like these, hats and scarves on the head,

shoulders huddling like the last two
unused spoons in the kitchen drawer